I am convinced boats are held together by hose clamps and zip ties. I started in the bilge and I have been changing all the hose clamps (and a lot of the hoses) on our boat from perforated to stamped. They were all stainless steel of various quality but I have so far found five that had failed across the webbing. Two fell off when I touched them. All the failed ones showed signs of corrosion and the failures were sometimes out in the open and sometimes under the screw thread.

Here is an example:

I didnít start collecting them until I was someway through the process but here is my collection to date:

The experts are right when they say these things have no place on a boat.

I would generally agree and personally purchase awab clamps as well. Well worth the cost.

But to be a bit contrarian, I lived through decades without any near misses on the old style worm clamps and even today, few stores have the nicer clamps on stock. When that happens, itís not a blocker for me. The condition of the clamps you are removing is much worse than what you should see, even with that clamp style. First, those clamps should be inspected whenever they are reused, no way they got in that condition consistently if inspected each time. Second, those clamps were severely over tightened and thatís not the clamps fault. An swab will take more abuse, but that does not justify, nor solve the issue with how they were installed. You should tighten clamps to a good tension, then come back after they have taken a set and snug them up later without over torquing them. A broken worm is an installers fault, not a mfg defect. Over tensioned clamps that bend and show signs of Sticking have already failed and should be discarded immediately instead of just tightened with a bigger screwdriver.

We always had to watch for the non stainless screw, but even if you did get one, they should last a long time and get caught in an annual inspection .

Practice good clamp hygiene and you should easily get by without an entire boat of expensive clamps. Itís a luxury, not a necessity. JMHO because somebody might think that upgrading their clamps solves installer failures and thatís not really an optimized solution.

Not all perforated clamps are equal.
On some models, the area to either side of the perforation can be significantly wider (making the whole clamp significantly wider. These can obviously have a great deal more strength.

While I do like the non perforated clamps, there are junky ones of those also. Most commonly they lose the edge on the screw threads and release tension.

On the highly critical stuff I prefer the T bolt clamps, but they are pricey.

As we now live in the era of Chinese junk and knockoffs, I inspect all clamps before installing.

Ted

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Being the non-mekanyik sort of guy that I am, and being familiar with only the type of clamp shown in the photos above, what else is there? Help this poor, stoopid guy out, will ya?

Hey Mike. Not stoopid, at least I am with you if you are. I avoid the ones that are stamped "All Stainless" and have a zinc plated screw that lasts one year.
Otherwise mine are mostly the worm screw kind.
There are T type clamps on the hose to exhaust elbow connection, but I don't recall any other Ts on my boat.

Even T Bolt clamps shouldnít be the spot welded ones because they corrode and fail around the weld, thatís why I donít use them, plus on a lot of fittings you canít get two on because of their width. I use the spring ones on heat affected hoses on the engine to retain the tension.

I have been thinking of what to do with all the clamps I have removed and I reckon the poster who is most in denial can have them as long as they promise to use them on all their sea cocks.

I have been thinking of what to do with all the clamps I have removed and I reckon the poster who is most in denial can have them as long as they promise to use them on all their sea cocks.

That's an awesome idea!

Like you I went through my entire boat and replaced almost all clamps with Awab. I found only a few truly questionable clamps, but what I did find that was pretty bad was EVERY near or below waterline connection had been double clamped (obviously after the fact since the clamps were different) including many places where double clamps did not fit over the hose barb! This is a major problem because not only does this not increase the security, but the clamp can actually damage the hose and help it to creep off the hose barb.

I had an AWAB hose clamp just fail on raw water hose. It started leaking and couldn't be tightened or loosened. The screw had basically seized. Went to NAPA in Ketchikan and they sold me a T-bolt clamp with 4 bent tabs per side. The brand is NORMA and this specific model is ND57 W5. Nice clamp but expensive.